All in Parsha

Parshas Tetzaveh: Which One Of Your Five Senses Is Not Like The Rest?

Devir Kahan
Parsha, Chumash, Machshavah

There is a structural oddity found in Parshas Tetzaveh. In last week’s parsha, Terumah, the Torah discusses at length all the various keilim of the Mishkan. The Torah then moves on in Tetzaveh to discuss the clothing of the Kohein Gadol, until the end of the parsha, at which point it resumes its discussion of the keilim by speaking about the mizbeach ha’ketores. We must then ask the obvious question: Why is the mizbeach ha’ketores separated from all the other keilim? Why is the Torah broken up this way?...

From Yaakov To Yisrael (Part 1): Introduction — The One Who Grasps The Heel

Zach Sterman
Yaakov To Yisrael, Parsha, Chumash

In order to engage in comprehensive Torah study we must first establish our methodology and intention. The Torah is a book of prophesies composed perfectly by God, and it therefore wastes no words and was conceived through Divine wisdom. As a book of prophecy, the Torah’s goal is to deliver the message of God, though at times its messages are cryptic and challenging...

Parshas Yisro: Are You A Murderer?

Devir Kahan
Midrash, Parsha

In competition to determine “the most important parsha” in a particular sefer of Chumash, Yisro would fair quite well as a candidate for Shemos. Indeed, a number of crucially important events transpire in Parshas Yisro, but we shall endeavor to examine herein quite a lesser-known aspect of the parsha. In particular, we shall focus on a Midrash that comments on the giving of the Torah...

A Nation Of Nonbelievers

Devir Kahan
Machshavah, Parsha, God

Amongst the most preeminent themes of Parshas Beshalach is without question that of emunah, belief in God. The stories of the parsha all seem to focus around the Jewish people finding their faith in the Divine. And yet, it is just as much a parsha of non-belief, and a lack of faith in God...

The Reason Why Men Shouldn’t Wear Tefillin (Sometimes)

Devir Kahan
Halacha, Machshavah, Parsha

As the Jewish people leave Egypt in this week's parsha, they are given the mitzvah of tefillin as a commemoration and memorial of the leaving of Egypt. It used to be that people wore tefillin all day long, but as it became more difficult to keep a clean body the whole day, the amount of time people wore tefillin was reduced to just shacharis. What is important to understand, however, is that tefillin and praying are not really connected...

A Divine Name & The Unlikeliness Of The Universe

Devir Kahan
Parsha, Science, God

It is well known that the Torah uses different names to refer to God at different points in the narrative so as to convey different aspects of God’s manifestation and interaction with the world. Each name is specifically chosen in each context, and each has its own unique meaning. This is all quite a topic unto itself — especially given modern Biblical scholarship — and we shall thusly save it for another time. Nonetheless, herein we shall focus on one of the Divine names in particular and discover something truly astonishing...

Love, Brotherhood, & The Botanist: A Reading Of Haftaras Vayigash

Devir Kahan
Parsha

Most people consider there to be two parts of Neviim — there are the interesting bits, and then there are the actual prophecies contained in sections like Trei Asar and so forth that most people never learn. This is an understandable phenomena. The prophecies contained in most of Neviim are esoteric and fantastical, redundant, and can easily be summarized with one of the following proclamations: “Do good or you’ll be punished”; “Good things will come after the darkness”. In this essay we shall study the Haftarah of Vayigash in an attempt to show the deeper meanings and insights contained therein, with the hopes of emerging with a greater appreciation for all of Tanach...

Why Didn’t Yosef Contact His Father?

Devir Kahan
Parsha

There is an interesting moral dilemma that arrises in the parshios at the end of Bereishis. The issue that confronts us is as follows: How could Yosef not have contacted his grieving father to let him know that he was still alive? Once Yosef rose to power, surely he was capable of sending a messenger to his distraught father — yet he does not do so. How could he possibly act in this way? Why wouldn’t he have gotten word to his father that he was, in fact, alive and ruling a country? Indeed, Ramban poses the question quite well...

Parshas Vayeishev: Yehudah, Tamar, & Why We Can’t Benefit From Chanukah Candles

Devir Kahan
Chanukah, Holidays, Parsha

A joke: A scientist is in a room running some tests on a fly he has trapped in a test tube. He plucks one leg off of the fly and tells the fly, "fly". And so the fly does. It buzzes away, and the scientists records the affects of his little experiment on the fly in his notebook. He catches the fly again, plucks off another leg, instructs the fly to fly, and takes note of what happens again. He continues on like this until all six of the fly's legs are gone. With each leg painfully removed, the fly flies, and the scientist takes note. The scientist then removes one wing, tells the fly to fly, and when the fly doesn't take off, he concludes that after six legs and a wing have been removed from a fly, it can no longer hear...

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